I am serving a two year mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Brazil, Porto Alegre North Mission. I post on this blog every week, so check it out to hear about my life as a missionary!

Monday, August 24, 2015

Week 51

We saw many miracles this week with our current investigators. Unfortunately we had to cut a few as always due to their lack of desire to progress, but the investigators that continued with the desire were very blessed and 2 were baptized yesterday!

Grasieli impressed us with her excitement for her baptism early in the week. When we showed up to interview her, she proudly showed us a dress she´d bought with her mom for the special occasion. The also surprised us with her talent (she´s 8 years old) in cooking, she´d made some of the best cupcakes I´d eaten for us. When the other Elder came out of the room from the interview he told us and Grasieli´s mom how he´d felt like the one being interviewed! When he asked her questions she whipped out her Book of Mormon and showed him many scriptures that she´d marked and that had helped her.

When we went to visit last week´s baptism, Lenai, her grandmother told us how the government had taken her and her 4 siblings to a place where kids without parents that can´t provide for them live. We were devastated and we visited the building with the branch president and other members that had been taking care of them. As it always is, our attempts at visiting them were denied due to the complicated nature of the government system. We went to the building where they told us one thing and then when we went to the government building they told us something else.

Lenai´s grandma told us how Lenai had cried when they came to pick her up because, as she told them, "My missionaries are going to visit me tomorrow!" Apparently before we´d met the family, the kids had been doing many bad things, not obeying their grandma, leaving at night, ect. Yet after we began to visit them, teach them, and take them to church, all of that stopped. Her grandma noticed that every night without fail Lenai said a prayer, and guarded her precious Book of Mormon close.

We had been working a lot with one of our investigators named Poliana. She´s 23 and is taking care of her 2 little kids by herself. She has been through a lot of difficulties and trials and had been looking for a purpose to her life. Her mother had tried to kill her, her husband had abandoned her when she was pregnant, and she had felt very alone. When we visited her she always had a smile on because of the light and peace she felt when we taught. We invited her to be baptized and even though she accepted without hesitation, her neighbors gave a lot of opposition, trying to dissuade her from her decision.

On Thursday we had a Mission Tour with Élder Costa, the seventy over Brazil. He taught us how to be more effective and successful and we all enjoyed the way he presented the training in a very funny yet spiritual manner. The conference was in Porto Alegre and so we had to take a bus 6 hours there, and 6 hours back in the same day.

Saturday night we met a really cool family with many kids playing around with each other. They paid a lot of attention to us and the father was very interested, especially when we shared the First Vision. On Sunday we were able to take only one of the kids, named Eliezer, to church. However when he got home he told everyone how it was and they expressed desire to go as well the next Sunday.

One of the best parts of the week was Sunday night, when we held a Family Home Evening with Vanderlei´s family. We were following up with them and teaching them how to hold one in their own house. I shared a message with them on The Family: A Proclamation to the World. The discussion we had was very spiritual and all their kids paid a lot of attention. I made cookies for them and they made a hamburger type thing called Xis. I was very very happy to hear that they are reading the scriptures and praying as a family every day. They´re excited for their marriage and baptism this coming week!